He reined in Ginger and imagined the others admiring the smart way the mare pulled up, nearly sitting on her haunches. Their sorry mounts’ gaits dribbled to a halt.
“If Cortéz told the truth, it could take us half a day to ride to where she lives,” Ned said. He brushed snow off his coat and wished he’d grabbed the pair of leather gloves that Pete had taken from the sheriff’s saddlebags.
“He wasn’t lyin’,” Black Eagle insisted. “Not with his brat’s hair in my left hand and my toothpick in the right.”
Ned wouldn’t have been surprised if Black Eagle had killed the child anyway, just to hear its mama scream. Hamby nearly grinned to think of it.
“I don’t see as why we had to leave them Mezcans livin’,” Pete complained.
Ned shook his head. “We’ll pick them off later. Prob’ly catch them on their way someplace else. Somethin’ tells me after today, they’ll be wantin’ to move on.”
“Aw, Pete just wanted a go at that boy’s mama,” Hop said. “Man don’t got no discipline at all. Me, I’m savin’ myself for one genuine white woman. Hope she ain’t plug-ugly.”
Pete spat, and stared after the glob, which sank through the thin layer of new snow. “What kind of woman holes up way back in some canyon by her lonesome? Curin’ folks, for Christ’s sake. Probably wrinkled up and senile to boot. Let’s go get this done, boys. I wanta see what this crazy woman’s got for us that we couldn’t a took off them Mezcans with a lot less ridin’.”
Ned adjusted his hat and glared at Pete. His hunger for blood and a woman faltered against the bitter realities of cold and snow. He shivered, longing for the few comforts of the miner’s shack they’d taken over, the warm fire they’d left behind. He must be losing his edge, because he didn’t want to ride down the canyon in a blizzard. Didn’t want to do it in the least. But if he wanted to live long enough to get home, he couldn’t give these boys the slightest inkling that he was going soft.
If the boys were hell-bent on killing the woman today, he’d best make them think that it had been his idea all along.
CHAPTER THREE
Miss Lucy Worthington drew a clean, white pair of gloves out of her dust-grimed reticule. It was essential that her appearance and demeanor remind her future husband of her station, despite the fact that she was clearly meeting him in hell.
She gazed once more out the window of the bone-jarring stagecoach and thought she’d never seen such a wretched, empty place in all her life. She’d been thrilled to finally disembark from the Santa Fe train, whose motion had sickened her from Washington to northern Arizona. At least she was thrilled until she recovered sufficiently to look around.
Where she was from, the collection of raw-looking huts wouldn’t have qualified as an eyesore, much less dared to call itself a town. Thankfully, one of the vile mud huts (called “adobe” by the locals) proved to be the station where she would begin the last leg of her journey. The round, suspiciously swarthy-looking woman who ran the place offered her some sort of bean gruel which stank of rancid grease and unfamiliar spices. Lucy declined as quickly as was politely possible.
She’d begun to think of the whole trip as a desperate struggle with starvation. Only the respite of the Harvey House meal stops had saved her from perishing with hunger, for she’d been unable to eat a bite during the ride.
The stagecoach was far worse. She’d been incapable of keeping down her meager bites of food, and she was forced to share the cramped space with the most uncouth of travelers, a pair of the shadiest looking creatures that ever dared call themselves “businessmen”.
They were persistently, inappropriately friendly. Were it not for the dour expression of Miss Rathbone, her companion, she would have feared for her honor. Fortunately, the old woman had a face that was the envy of all bulldogs. When Lucy’s silence failed to convince them she had no desire to speak with them, Lucy could almost hear the starched Bostonian woman’s protective growl. Finally, the two men took the hint and apologized, muttering excuses about the appalling lack of decent females in these parts.
Although the air outside was freezing, Lucy insisted on opening the window against the sour odors of the unwashed bodies in the coach. At first, the others had protested, until she added to the stench with her own vomit. Now, when she stared out the window, she wondered if there could be anything but hardship waiting in this harsh land. Mile after mile of wilderness rolled past them: distant, snow-capped mountains, rugged, red-rock earth. Even the trees looked bent and stunted by the cold wind. She cursed her father once more for sending her out here against her wishes.
He’d explained the situation again and again. “Ward Cameron wants the Worthington name and all it can bring him. He’s a man of ambition, but not a man of breeding. He’ll accept whatever he must to further his career. And realistically, my dear, he’s your only choice. If you’d wanted better, you should have . . .”
Lucy pressed her delicate, gloved hands against her ears, as if they could blot out the memory of her father’s cruel words. Words that reminded her of the shameful thing that she had done. Words that whispered that despite her grand name and her white gloves, Ward Cameron might still abandon her to whatever demons lurked in this harsh land.
* * *
As Anna walked from the feed shed to the cabin, thick snowflakes began to spiral down toward earth. She glanced up, past the bare creek willows toward the cliffs. The trembling whiteness leached the canyon walls of redness, robbed the junipers of green.
Something in the shimmer of the gray air, the ache of the old injury at her right knee, hinted that this snowfall would be heavy, a true blizzard, though spring was close at hand. But here the seasons were often unpredictable, and she was glad of the good store of firewood Javier Cortéz had cut for her in payment for setting his son’s broken arm last fall. It would be one less thing to worry about as she worked to cure the unconscious gambler.
She paused a moment inside the cabin’s doorway to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim light. One luxury she truly missed from her earlier life was glass. One clear window would make such a difference in the lighting of this cabin, but even if she had the money, bringing such a thing unbroken to this canyon would be nearly impossible.
Even so, the fire’s amber light leant comfort as well as warmth. The only sounds she heard were the low rumbles of Notion’s snores and the burning logs, which shifted amid a shower of quickly fading sparks. She’d have to light the wall lamp, or she’d soon be lulled to sleep herself. Something about a snowfall, even when she couldn’t see it through the tiny, shuttered windows, always made her feel content to be inside the cabin, decently fed and comfortably warm.
Cupping the egg inside her hand, she slipped off her coat and reached up to hang it on a peg. Then she placed her broad-brimmed leather hat beside it.
“How ‘bout some water here?”
Quinn’s voice, so unexpected, startled her so badly that Anna dropped the egg onto the hard dirt floor. The yellow dog, instantly alerted by the thin crack of the shell, bounded over in two steps and began lapping the rare treat with his broad, pink tongue.
“Madre de Dios!” Anna cursed, then told Quinn, “I was going to cure you with that egg.”
“Must have worked. I’m feeling better, or at least I might be once I get some water and my clothes back.” His voice sounded weak and parched.
Anna brought him a tin cup of the tea she’d brewed this morning, in case the gambler roused.
As she helped him tilt his head to drink, she noticed he’d removed the poultice. She glanced around the pallet, wondering what he could have done with it.
Quinn gulped the still-warm liquid, then made a face like a tiny child force-fed turnip greens.
“Gads, woman. Is this juice from that stinking poultice?”
“It’s only spikenard tea. It tastes just fine, Ryan.” She marveled that the man complained more about what she did to help him than the bullet that had slammed into his shoulder. “What did you do with the
poultice? It should still be on your back.”
“It smelled even worse when I tossed it on the fire. And you’ve been living in the sticks too long if you think this tastes decent.”
“I don’t brew it for the taste.”
“Then for what? Torture?”
“The curing woman who lived here claimed the Indians use it for a lot of things. It makes babies come easier.”
“So that’s what’s wrong with me. I shoulda listened to my mama and kept my legs crossed.”
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. “In your case, I had more in mind its respiratory uses. Your breathing’s worried me. That and the fact that you’ve slept for two straight days.”
“I’ve slept two days?”
His voice stretched taut, and his smile twisted into a grimace.
“Are you in pain? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Two days. . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “The last time, back in Mud Wasp, I was out two days.”
Dios mio, Anna wished he hadn’t brought up the incident that lay between them like a coiled copperhead. She poured herself a cup of spikenard. Sweetened with a little honey, its mild flavor suited her. She sat down on one of the stools and sipped, as if for strength.
Since Quinn had been dropped off into her life, she’d thought of little else besides the need to talk to him about what happened. Still, the words that she’d rehearsed turned cold and sticky in her throat, as if the honey in her tea had congealed.
She hesitated, her thoughts returning to the little book of Shakespeare she had taken from him. Then to the greed and desperation she had felt to learn where on earth the swindler had secreted his money.
Once more she’d picked up his jacket, though her earlier search through its pockets had yielded nothing in the way of cash. This time, however, she noticed its surprising weight. Ah, yes. She’d known he’d keep it somewhere nearby. Smiling at her victory, she set to work ripping apart the well-made garment.
“You’re quite the tailor, Ryan,” she told the snoring man.
The gold coins had been sewn into it, cleverly distributed inside the hem and seams. While the gambler snored, she robbed him of his hoard. There was enough here to take her far from little Mud Wasp, enough perhaps, to finally reach her goal.
“San Francisco,” she had whispered once again. As they always had, the two words soothed her, promising riches for an attractive young woman who knew how to entertain a man. And she didn’t mean to do that entertaining at third-rate hell holes any longer, either. No, sir. God had given her a fine voice, as if for consolation, and she was going to use it to start a brand new life. A new life, with a new name, Miranda Flynn.
Miranda Flynn had style, élan. Miranda Flynn was a star’s name, like Jenny Lind or Lillie Langtry. Miranda Flynn had never been some two-bit singer who allowed a bullying bartender to rough her up, demanding favors she was not prepared to give. Favors she wouldn’t be able to protect from him much longer.
She closed her eyes, but nothing dammed the flow of tears. Miranda Flynn had never been gullible, like Anna, nor a thief, like Annie Faith.
“I’m sorry,” she told the sleeping gambler. She picked up the carpetbag that contained the few items she would take and headed for the door. Pausing, she gazed down at the young man’s tousled, sandy brown hair and barely resisted the temptation to stroke it, as she had so many times these past two weeks. Despite his vile profession, he hadn’t seemed such a bad sort. Though he’d bought her pretty gifts, he hadn’t considered that a license to ill-use her. If he hadn’t been a gambler, she might have chosen someone else to rob. Or at least she would have thought of it if she felt she had more time.
Putting down her bag for a moment, she covered him with the worn gray blanket. There was no need to let Miss Frieda find him lying here trussed up as a Christmas goose and bare-assed to boot. No need to do more than steal his money and his horse.
Anna’s face burned with shame at the memory of how she’d allowed fear and ambition to cloud her sense of right and wrong. And the agonizing lessons it had taken to clear her vision of those flaws.
She sipped the cooling liquid and forced herself to speak past the painful lump that prevented her from swallowing. “There’s nothing I can say that won’t sound like an excuse for what I did in that hotel room. And there is no excuse. I had my reasons, but they were all wrong. I can see that now. Back then, I was a petty thief, and I robbed you for a petty dream. I’m sorrier than I could ever tell you.”
He said nothing, only opened his green eyes and stared with an expression so full of raw hatred, it nearly took her breath away.
After a brief pause, she steeled herself to say the rest, though the words threatened to dislodge a private store of tears inside her. “If it makes you feel any better, I was punished for my crimes”
“Punished?” His voice sounded shockingly strong now, considering his condition. “You want to hear about punishment, Annie Faith? Let me tell you about what happened when I woke up two days later. How the kind and caring citizens of Mud Wasp threw me in the hoosegow because I couldn’t pay for the hotel or the livery on the horse that you ran off with. Let me tell you about how your two days turned into two weeks while I waited for the circuit judge to come to town. And how those two weeks turned into two years before I saved the money that I needed. And how by that time, it was too late. Too late because of you.”
Tears burned in Anna’s eyes, but she couldn’t bear to let him see them. Instead, she shoved a thick log into the fireplace.
“I told you, I’m not Annie anymore. I’m Anna,” she insisted. He said nothing, and she knew that in his mind, she’d always be a thief.
She had not expected his forgiveness, but she’d still thought herself at peace with what she’d been. But the moment she had seen the anger etched in his expression, her own self-loathing rushed back at her, inevitable as winter on the bright heels of the fall.
Barely had the flames begun to lick around the loose bark when she grabbed her hat and stalked back outside into the nearly blinding snow. She found the storm no colder than the darkness in her heart.
* * *
“Have some more soup, Papa.” Horace Singletary thrust out the spoon. Exhausted from a ten-hour day spent processing claims, the clerk tried to will his hand to steadiness so he would not spill every drop. Despite his effort, fatigue made the curved bowl quiver, and he felt the patience draining from his soul.
Outside the cramped wood structure, a wintry dusk had long since robbed the sky of color, and Horace had been up before the dawn. He was cold in the ramshackle bunkhouse, cold and tired to his bones. Tired as his father now looked, despite the fact that Horace was only twenty-four years old.
His father’s blue eyes appeared to focus briefly on the spoon before growing soft and distant once again. Enveloped in an old wool blanket, the old man nodded, eyelids drooping like a pair of setting suns.
“Papa, please, you have to eat.” Horace hated begging. How he wished that Laurel would come back. She had always been so much more patient, and their father seemed to listen more attentively to her. But a week earlier, his sister’s husband had grown impatient at her long absences. Fearing that her three-year marriage would unravel, she’d finally returned home to their ranch, two days’ ride from here.
Horace felt a small surge of victory as Papa reluctantly accepted the spoon. Until a moment later, when his eyes closed once again and the contents dribbled from the old man’s mouth.
“Please stay awake so we can do this!” Horace shouted in frustration.
The old man’s eyes shot open with an expression of clear terror. “Sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry . . .” he began. Tears rolled unchecked down his hollow cheeks.
“Oh, Papa, no.” Horace used a worn kerchief to blot the moisture on his father’s face. The skin felt more like paper than the flesh Horace remembered. It seemed as if, since he’d lost his land, the old man had withered into weightless shadow, a fragile
husk of the giant he’d once been.
Watching Papa’s slow decline was pure hell. Horace felt impotent against it, as powerless as he had been a thousand miles away at college. More than anything, Horace hated his father’s now-frequent tears. They reminded him too sharply of how proud Papa had been. And they made Horace feel so guilty that he nearly wept himself.
He should be more patient. And he should have done something to stop Judge Cameron years before.
It took another half-hour’s effort to feed his father half the bowl of lukewarm bean and ham soup. Afterward, Horace threw two more split logs into the bunkhouse stove and rubbed his own cold hands amid the sparks. A chill wind whistled through the gaps between loose boards.
He supposed they had been lucky that Judge Cameron had left them this. An old bunkhouse on the nearest section of what once had been their ranch. The rest had been sold for back-taxes two years after the attack. So close to Copper Ridge, the land’s value had risen. Horace shouldn’t have been shocked when Judge Cameron bought it, shouldn’t have been outraged when Cameron tore down the comfortable house where he and Laurel had been raised and replaced it with a newer, grander residence. The only vestige the judge kept of the old place was the ranch house’s name, The Pines.
Yet Horace couldn’t help but think about how neatly it had worked out for the bastard. How after Hamby’s raiders had come and beaten his father, then driven off the herd, Judge Cameron had been so harsh about the tax bill. How suddenly, the bank ─ even family friends ─ wouldn’t loan Papa so much as a Yankee dime. How amazingly, when the ranch at last came up for auction, the judge had been the only bidder.
Not surprisingly, he had bought it for a song.
All this had occurred while Horace had been away, working on his education. He’d had to return home, his degree unfinished, but not his long-held dream.
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